Democrat John Edwards was acquitted in May 2012 on a charge of misusing campaign funds to cover up an affair. / Chuck Burton, AP

by Catalina Camia, USA TODAY

by Catalina Camia, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON â?? John Edwards said last year after his criminal trial on campaign finance charges that he believed he could still do some good with his life.

Now, it appears as though the ex-Democratic presidential candidate is ready to return to his professional roots, after a federal jury last May acquitted him on one charge of misusing about $1 million in campaign money to cover up an extramarital affair. The judge declared a mistrial on five other charges.

Edwards has reactivated his law license in North Carolina and is being promoted as a featured speaker at a June 6 retreat in Orlando for lawyer clients of PMP, a marketing firm. Analysts say those steps make sense for Edwards, whose ability to win over juries in medical malpractice cases made him a wealthy man before he ran successfully for the U.S. Senate in 1998.

"As much as Edwards' personal conduct shocked and disappointed the trial lawyers who supported his campaigns, I still think many of them will want to hear what he has to say," said Hampton Dellinger, a lawyer who served as an analyst for NBC News during the Edwards trial.

"He's faced juries as an advocate and as a defendant, and succeeded in both roles," Dellinger told USA TODAY. "His perspective is unquestionably unique."

Edwards is re-emerging as two other politicians tainted by scandal are in the midst of comebacks. Republican Mark Sanford was sworn in earlier this week to Congress and Democrat Anthony Weiner is said to be on the verge of declaring his candidacy for New York City mayor.

A political career may be out of reach for Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee whose 2008 presidential bid never really gained much traction amid the Barack Obama-Hillary Clinton rivalry.

"There is no hunger or thirst for him to re-enter politics," Ferrel Guillory, director of the Program on Public Life at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, said in phone interview. "They way it played out diminished Edwards' chances for a political comeback more than it diminished Sanford and Weiner."

Dellinger and Guillory are not surprised Edwards is re-entering the job market by tapping his legal roots. Whether Edwards goes back into the courtroom is not yet clear, but reactivating his law license would be the first step toward such a move.

"The outcome of his criminal trial meant his law license remained valid and I thought he might seek a courtroom return," Dellinger said. "He surely wants to be remembered as an advocate, not a defendant."

Edwards, who turns 60 next month, has largely stayed out of the public eye since last year's trial. He lives outside of Chapel Hill with two of his children, Emma Claire and Jack. Quinn, Edwards' daughter with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter, lives with her mother.

Wade Smith, an Edwards friend and early mentor in his legal career, told the Associated Press that he recently saw Edwards and that he looked "so much better, more relaxed."

"He's got so much ability and talent," Smith said about Edwards. "Lawyers who saw him in front of a jury will tell you that they never saw anything like him, his ability to connect. That talent is still in there and I think he will find a space to use it. "

Edwards is scheduled to speak about "Historic Trials of the Century" at the retreat sponsored by PMP Marketing.